A Moorland Hanging

by Michael Jecks

  “Simon, listen! Please, just for a minute.” Baldwin was smiling broadly. “Think on this: Bruther normally had men to protect him, all the time he was on the moors. Yet on the very night that Sir William met Thomas Smyth, Bruther suddenly did not need those men again. Strange, don’t you think? Then again, think about this: John met Bruther that night and they certainly exchanged words—and we hear that he rushed off shortly afterward to Chagford and attacked the first man he met. Hardly the behavior of a rational squire, I would have thought.”

  “I think you must have drunk too much of good Farmer Meavy’s ale—you’re babbling,” said Simon, but he kept a suspicious eye on his friend. After a few minutes, he lost his patience. “All right, then, Baldwin. So what do you mean? What do you guess from these two hints?”

  “Ah, Simon, later, later, old friend. I see we’re heading for both Beauscyr Manor and Smyth’s house. Why don’t we go to see Thomas Smyth first? It is not far out of our way.”

  And he refused to discuss the matter further.

  –24–

  By the time they trotted into Smyth’s yard, Hugh was becoming desperate. He did not dare stop while the others carried on, for he knew how his slowness annoyed the knight, and was sure that if he stopped to water the roadside Baldwin would refuse to halt, and the three would leave him. Hugh was still too nervous of the idea of Crockern to want to be left far behind while his master and the others disappeared into the distance. So he lurched on painfully, his lips pressed firmly together in mounting anguish as the liquid sloshed painfully in his bladder.

  The yard was busy, with servants leading horses out for exercise or cleaning the stable of manure and soiled straw, while others were unloading a wagon of provisions for the kitchen. In the midst of this bustle, Hugh dropped from his horse and tossed the reins to Edgar, who received his mute plea with supercilious amusement, and rushed to the stable wall. After only a few seconds of agony, the relief was intense, and he smiled foolishly at the stones of the wall before him. Looking for his master, he saw the three walking behind George Harang toward the hall. He knew he should go after them but he could not hurry. There was no point, he thought. Simon and the knight were only going inside to ask more questions, and they had not needed his help so far.

  Inside the hall, Simon and Baldwin stood in a huddle with Thomas Smyth and stared round sadly.

  The room held almost twenty men injured in the morning’s fighting, and Smyth’s servants rushed hither and thither, carrying bowls of water and torn cloth for bandages. His wife was there too, holding a man’s hand and offering words of comfort. She glanced up as Simon entered, wiping at her forehead, but he could see her mind was on the wounded man. A surgeon knelt by another figure, obviously hard-pressed to see to all the slashes and stabs.

  While Simon watched in fascinated horror, the surgeon finished inspecting a head wound. The bailiff could not drag his eyes away as the doctor gently pushed a finger into the thickly clotted wound on the scalp. Quickly now, he took the proffered razor and shaved the man’s head. While the assistant held the white-faced tinner by the shoulders, the surgeon crouched by his head with a pair of large forceps. At a signal, the forceps were inserted into the wound and quickly hauled back, now with a fragment of white bone gleaming amid the gore. After a shriek, the wounded man stilled and calmed, panting, with his eyes wide in fear and pain, but now when the surgeon investigated the wound again, he wore a smile. Washing the blood away and cleaning it with egg white, he appeared well pleased, and sutured the skin together carefully, taking a pellet of thick pitch-smelling medicine and smothering it over the wound. Then he rose with a sigh and moved to the next man, a youth of only one or two and twenty, who had the broken shaft of an arrow jutting from his shoulder. He wept openly as the surgeon approached, thick tears of terror falling from his thin and dirty cheeks.

  Thomas Smyth watched sadly, but looking up, he caught his wife’s eye. She stiffened, upright, holding his gaze, then flashed him a quick smile before turning her attention back to the figure before her. That brief recognition made his chest tighten in pride. After the drama out at the camp he had known he must explain about Martha Bruther and his dead son before Christine could hear of them from others. Even as the men were being carried indoors he had pulled her to one side.

  She had said nothing as he spoke, and he felt his panic rise at the thought of the hurt he was causing her. But then she ducked her head. “It was a long time ago, Thomas. Before I even knew you. And you kept your sadness over his death to yourself to save my feelings?” He could say nothing, mutely staring at her, and after a moment she touched his arm gently. “Come, Husband. We must make sure that no more die like your poor son.”

  And now the bailiff and his friend were back to question him again. Smyth rubbed his eye. He was tired after the horrors of the morning, and suddenly sickened.

  “Let’s get away from this spectacle,” he muttered, and led them to the door. Simon was pleased to see he stopped often on the way, patting a shoulder or the back of a wounded man, and always having a word or two with his men. He cared for them, Simon saw, and they knew it. As he approached, some even tried to sit upright, as if to show their respect.

  Simon was relieved to be out of the room and back in the open air again. The aura of pain and death in the hall was depressing, and he inhaled deeply, strolling behind the tinner, who meandered over to the stream, his head down and hands in his belt. There was a bench overlooking the water, and Thomas Smyth sat here, glowering ahead. Simon and Baldwin stood before him, Edgar waiting a little behind.

  It was Simon who broke the silence. Casting a suspicious eye at his friend, which told Baldwin more precisely than any words that the bailiff still had no idea of the direction his thoughts were taking him in, Simon said, “Thomas, we have been to visit Wat Meavy at his farm since we left you at the camp. He has confirmed that he saw John Beauscyr on the night that your son was killed.”

  “He saw Beauscyr that night?” The miner’s puzzled glance rose to meet Simon’s firm stare. “I don’t…You mean Beauscyr was there when Peter was murdered? It wasn’t him who killed Peter?”

  “No. From what we’ve heard, it wasn’t John.”

  The tinner was overwhelmed. He looked away, over the moors to the east. “My God! And I’ve caused the death of my men for…But how can this man Meavy be so sure? Are you saying that—”

  Baldwin intervened smoothly. “Thomas, this morning I was very impressed by your method of setting out your defense—the way that you sited the archers compared to the footsoldiers, and forced any frontal attack to concentrate just where you wanted it. Yes, it was masterly.” The tinner stared at the knight in silence. Imperturbably, Baldwin carried on. “If it was not for the second attack over the river, you would surely have carried the day with ease, wouldn’t you? There would have been a great massacre there. Where did you learn to fight like that?”

  Thomas shrugged. “It was just luck, that’s all. It seemed the best way to put the men.”

  “So it was not from your experience as a soldier in the wars with Sir William?”

  “He told you?” The astonishment could not have been faked.

  Baldwin smiled, his moustache lifting wolfishly. “Why shouldn’t he?”

  “Because it only serves to discredit the man,” he said shortly. “Why should he tell you about it? It’s true, I fought in the Welsh wars, and I knew Sir William there. That was part of the reason I came here, because I had heard from his men about tinning, and thought I might as well try it myself.”

  Simon was looking from one to the other with confusion, and the knight noticed. Gesturing mildly toward his friend, he said, “Perhaps you should explain. The bailiff was too young to have been involved in the wars.”

  “Very well,” said Thomas, throwing a faintly disgusted glance in Simon’s direction as if at the bailiff’s lack of knowledge of recent history. “It was back in the ’80s. King Edward, father to our Edward and much the greater man, called
on his lords to help him put down the Welsh once and for all, even offering to pay the troops himself. The Welsh had always been a thorn in his side, and back then, before his son proved so incompetent at Bannockburn, he had the Scots under control and could spend time in bringing the Welsh to his will. My lord joined the army, and I went with him to join with the men under Luke de Tany. I was only twenty then, back in ’82, but strong, and prepared to win some honor from a battle, and I soon became the leader of a small company.”

  “Sir William was there too?”

  “Oh yes, and like his son Robert he was as arrogant as a young knight can be. I think it was his first war, though he’s been on many a raid since. But he was a knight, and wouldn’t speak to me. I was just there to obey orders and nothing else. We were there under de Tany for ages. I remember we marched in Maytime, early in the month, and had to go to Neston, in the Dee estuary. I was a crossbowman, and I was one of the group put on the fleet of over sixty ships called from the Cinque ports. Many of us bowmen were there on the ships to serve as marines when we arrived in Anglesey. We took the island and built a bridge over the Menai Strait so that we could attack through to Bangor, but then that was it. By the end of September we were ready, but we had to wait until we had an instruction from the King to carry on, for we were to throw the enemy into confusion by diverting his armies just when the King’s own men started a new attack.

  “It went well. The King and the Earl of Lincoln moved up the Clwyd Valley, Earl Warenne advanced along the middle Dee, and Reginald de Grey went on from Hope. The Welsh had no chance against such forces, and the whole affair should have been finished quickly, but Archbishop Pecham decided to try to stop the killing. He mediated for some time and held up the attack—a stupid waste of time. It was obvious that the Welsh were merely taking the opportunity to regroup their men for more fighting.

  “Meanwhile, we in Anglesey were stuck with nothing to do. It was miserable, with no decent camp and too many men in a small area. Men fell ill, and we were all fretful and bored. We just wanted to get on with it and push the Welsh back. Well,” he glanced up at his attentive audience, “that was why Sir William did it, I think. Boredom!”

  A faraway look came to his face as he continued, every now and then his hand rising to his cheek to scratch at an insect bite. “You have to understand, first, that until then the soldiers had been well enough behaved. We had attacked the island and won it, we had set up camp as ordered, and we had built the bridge as we had been told. But the tedium of just sitting out there with nothing to do was dreadful! We knew that at any time we could be thrown over the bridge to meet the Welsh, and that was worrying. Those madmen with their long knives are vicious warriors. In the heat, and with more and more men falling ill from fevers and then dying, fights began to break out—little disputes flaring like charcoal when the bellows blow. Normally they would have been forgotten, but there they became reason to kill. And for a young knight seeking glory and wealth, it was maddening.

  “It was November when we began to move. We had waited there for months, and I think de Tany was as keen as the rest of us to get moving, so we crossed over the bridge and into Snowdonia. Our leader thought he could make a decisive attack which would throw the Welsh into disorder and end the war. It’s been said de Tany wanted to ruin the peace negotiations—I don’t know, he might have—but all I can say is that we all wanted to go by then.

  “At first, things went well. We rode out into the country, but the main host got entangled in a fight with Welshmen. When this happened, I was out on the flank with Sir William, and he ordered me to join him. We thought it was to attack the rear of the Welsh, but no, he took us round behind and then on into the country.”

  Now his eyes rose to meet Baldwin’s. “He had heard of a nunnery some miles away—I still don’t know the name of it—where the nuns had gold and jewels. That was his aim, not to fight in some vainglorious battle, but to make a profit from a war he thought foolish. He took us there and we attacked it. They had no chance. There were some hundred and fifty of us, and the nuns only had twenty-odd men to protect them. They were all killed, including the women, but not of course before they were raped.” His voice was cold and bitter as his face hardened. “And Sir William was the first, taking two women before he let his soldiers in.”

  There was silence for a moment, then Baldwin stirred. “And you?” he asked softly.

  “Me? I was there, but I didn’t rape or kill or steal. How could any man be so barbaric toward women who have dedicated themselves to God? These weren’t tavern sluts, they were holy. I couldn’t touch them if I’d wanted to. No, I turned my horse for Anglesey, and a good thing too. If I hadn’t, I might have said something to Sir William, and that would have earned me a slow death and no honor.

  “No, I returned, but by then the battle was lost and de Tany dead, drowned in the Menai Strait. The men had been routed, and I had a hard time of it winning my way back to the camp. There seemed little point in telling of Sir William and his exploits. The situation was bad enough, and most men were talking about getting back on to the ships and sailing for Rhuddlan or Neston, but the ships refused to take anyone. I think they were scared of what the King might say and do to them. So we were stuck there, until we were lucky enough to have Otto de Grandison arrive to take over. And that was when I had my shock, for suddenly, here was Sir William again, but now apparently covered in glory and wealthy to boot.

  “He had taken all he could carry, him and his men, and run away, riding as fast as they could to avoid the Welsh, for I suppose by now they had heard of the defeat of the army. So it was Sir William who brought news of the battle to the King, and it was Sir William who was rewarded by the King for acting so bravely as a messenger!”

  Falling silent, he frowned darkly at the water in the stream. “Of course, I was only a poor trooper, a mounted crossbowman. I could not accuse a great man like Sir William of outlawry. If I had, I would likely have been killed for my presumption. So I tried to forget it. I was with the soldiers when Otto de Grandison led us over the Strait again, this time successfully, and was with his army when it closed in on Snowdonia and took Caernarvon and Harlech. There was no great booty, but at least I came out of it alive, though bitter to see how easily a knight could win renown, wealth, and the King’s favor. Afterward, I travelled around the country. The war had left me feeling unsettled, and it was some time before I recalled what other men in Sir William’s retinue had said of tin mining and how a man could live on the moors free of anyone, making his own money from his work. The idea sounded good to me, so I came here.”

  Simon puffed out his cheeks as he sighed. The tinner’s story was all too common, he knew. He had met other soldiers and seen their bitterness at how they had been betrayed, their disgust with the rewards given to some who least deserved honor, while others who should have been feted were forgotten. It was the way of war. “And it was definitely Sir William who led the attack on the nunnery?” he asked.

  Thomas Smyth grunted assent without looking up.

  “Tell me, Thomas,” said Baldwin, “when did you mention this to Sir William?”

  Now the tinner looked up with a smile playing at his lips. “How did you guess that?” he asked. “No matter! I told him on the day Peter was killed—when I saw Sir William.”

  “What, when you saw him that morning at Beauscyr?” asked Baldwin, suddenly intense.

  “No, that evening, when he came here.”

  “What did you say to him?”

  “I had asked him to come to my hall to discuss what I should do about the tin on his land,” said Thomas, and gave a quick grin. “I think you know what I mean. He brought money with him, and he thought that was all…but then as he was about to leave, I told him that I remembered the convent, and he was quiet, like a dog is quiet when it sees a peril and crouches ready to spring. I told him all that I have just told you, all about the campaign, how he took men away from the battle to further his own fortune, and how he gained fa
vor with the King. I think he was shocked.”

  “Why did you tell him all this now? You have kept it hidden for years, so why bring it up now, so long afterward?”

  “I wanted my son to take on more responsibility for the mines. I didn’t tell Sir William he was my son, of course. I just let him know that I wanted young Bruther to be able to live free of attack. And I told him that if there was an attack on Peter, I would revenge him by telling my story. After all, the situation was different now. Before, I had been a worthless crossbowman, whose word could be doubted. Now, I was a powerful man in the area, with money and men to back up my words. He knew he could not deny it, and he went white with anger.”

  Baldwin’s face was serious. “I see. And that was why you thought Peter did not need his guards anymore?”

  “It was nothing to do with me. If I’d been here, I’d have made sure he kept the men with him. But he felt safe, I assume,” said Thomas Smyth, sighing sadly and staring down. “I’d told him the whole story the day before—and that I was going to confront Sir William. I thought then it could be useful for him to know what sort of a man Sir William was, but I’d no idea he’d leave his guard behind that night.”

  “I presume he felt he would be safe since you had told Sir William what you knew about him,” said Simon.

  “Perhaps,” said the tinner sadly. “It’s all the same now, anyway. My Peter is dead.”

  “There is one thing I still do not understand,” said Baldwin gently. “You say that Peter came past here and his guards left him here before he made his way back over the moors, but why should he come past here in the first place? It surely is not on his way back to his hut—that would take him over the moors from the inn. Was it only to leave the men that he came over here?”

  “He usually came this way on his journeys back from the inn. The path from here is safer, with fewer bogs.”

  “But you did not see him?”